Wild Rising: A Yellowstone Shifters Novel Read online

  Wild Rising

  A Yellowstone Shifters Novel

  K. Panikian

  Copyright © 2021 K. Panikian

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by MiblArt

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Books In This Series

  Books By This Author

  “My name is Sienna Wilder and up until about age 12, I thought I was human.”

  From a young age, Sienna learned to control the savage creature that raged in her heart. Swearing never to unleash the puma again, she kept her head down, her emotions level, and she survived.

  Inside though, she yearned to find a place where she could roam free. Landing her dream job as a park ranger at Yellowstone, Sienna thinks she’s finally found it, only to discover that she’s not the only one with a secret beast. Now, women are disappearing and no one is paying attention. Sienna must discover the truth or she may be next. Can she learn to trust her wild side in time to save herself and the others?

  Chapter 1

  The smallest of the big cats, the puma, stared at me with sea-gold eyes through the clear glass of his enclosure. His rust-brown body lounged on the rocks, paws tucked under his chest, as sunlight and shadows flickered sinuously across his fur.

  His ears twitched as noisy groups of people passed by.

  Staring at the elegant, languid form, I restrained the purr that threatened to erupt from my throat. I didn’t want to agitate him. He couldn’t smell me through the glass but if I made a feline noise, he would lose it.

  I’d learned, after observing different pumas in different zoos over the years, that it was too painful to watch them react to me, to recognize me. I wanted to learn, but I didn’t want to hurt the animals while I did so.

  I brimmed with curiosity and bewilderment, but they were only trapped creatures, and I wasn’t cruel.

  Watching his large paws knead the rock, his claws catching and releasing, I sank into the moment. I wondered if my claws flexed like that when I shifted.

  When I changed into my animal form during the full moon, I retained no sense of my human self and when I changed back at dawn, I never remembered how it felt to be a puma, hence my total fascination when I had the chance to observe one.

  As I left the zoo, I checked my phone and saw the moving company’s confirmation. They’d be at my apartment next week to take my belongings to my next duty spot. My heart rate sped up as my mind rioted with possibilities. I couldn’t believe I’d finally nailed my dream job. I was officially a Yellowstone National Park Ranger. I rubbed my hands together in glee.

  WALKING quickly through the gray and purple twilight, I ignored the footsteps behind me. It was D.C. after all, of course people walked here and there. It didn’t mean anyone followed me in particular.

  That was wrong. I knew the footsteps followed me specifically.

  I’d made a mistake visiting the zoo today. I couldn’t help it; I liked to watch the big cats—I’d sit in the shade and stare at their enormous paws and their wide, yawning mouths, and I’d imagine myself doing those same puma behaviors under the moonlight.

  Sometimes, however, the D.C. wolf pack members liked to hang out at the zoo. I’d seen them there before and I knew that meant I shouldn’t come again.

  Now, I would pay for that lapse. Or they would.

  I quickened my pace, snapping my fingers twice to call my puma to the surface before inhaling the city air deeply into my nostrils. I sifted through the different scents, classifying them. I didn’t have a great sense of smell, even when I accessed my puma nature, but I had a decent one, and I couldn’t mistake the stench that followed me—wolf shifters, stinking of wet dog fur, musky wildness, and, a little bit of blood.

  They’d already had fun that evening and now they wanted to continue their revelry. Well, they could look somewhere else. To them I smelled like their favorite enemy, but I wasn’t, not really. If they attacked me, I would be seriously hurt. Or they would all die violently and gruesomely. There was no middle ground when my Beast came to play.

  I glanced down the alley to my right. It appeared empty, except for some tall boxes. Perfect.

  Abruptly, I darted down the dark space and crouched behind the largest of the boxes. No need to cause a big fuss if they passed me by. Just because I felt paranoid, didn’t mean everyone was after me. Wait, I had that wrong.

  I thought back to reading Catch-22 in my high school English class. “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” Oh yeah. Very prophetic, I said to myself as the shifters ducked into my alley, looking alert. They were definitely after me.

  The lead tracker looked young, probably in his early twenties, with clean-shaven features and curly hair. His two buddies looked equally innocent—just a group of low-ranking pack members out for fun. I couldn’t afford to hurt them, nor could I let them get close enough to catch my true scent.

  As I crouched in a puddle behind my box, my knees growing damp through my jeans, I thought over my options. I was on my way out of the city, with just a week on my current job contract with the U.S. Park Police. I could show off my skills a little more than I would normally in the circumstances. By the time the higher-ups in the wolf pack got the vague news of my presence, I would be out of town.

  Tightening my purse across my body so it wouldn’t flop around, I crouched deeper. I beat a quick rhythm on my thigh with my fingers, just enough for my puma to boost me.

  I kept my puma caged, but when I needed to access her senses or her strength, I let her out through controlled movements—finger snaps or claps, or other tapping beats. It was a strange system, I knew, but with no one to teach me how to be a shifter, it was the best I’d come up with as a scared kid to keep my wild nature from taking me over.

  When the three men approached almost to my hiding spot, I leaped into the air, my legs propelling me powerfully high. Scrabbling at the brick wall with clawed fingers, I clambered to the roof and looked down again.

  The three wolf shifters stared up at me, frustration simmering in their aggressive postures as their eyes sheened bright green. I’d identified myself as a cat shifter and I roamed their territory without permission. They could now engage with the full complicity of their pack. Or they could call in the higher-ups if they felt out of their depth.

  I knew they couldn’t climb the wall after me, not that high. They would have to find another way to the roof.

  Come on, I crossed my fingers. Pull out that phone. Give me a window to creep away. I knew, out of sight, I was the better sneak predator. I could lose those boys long before their pack betas got to the scene to track me. No problem.

  And once o
ut of sight, I knew my scent was just confusing enough that the wolves couldn’t track me home. Despite the hints in my natural aroma, I wasn’t a real big cat shifter. My puma and I were separate entities sharing a body with the Beast.

  I sighed as the men below me exchanged significant glances. There would be no phone call yet. They were on the scent.

  Stepping away from the roof ledge, I looked around. Other buildings stood within leaping distance and I could leap really well.

  After choosing the one in an eastern direction, I took a running start and then jumped into the air, extending my body in an arc, before landing in a duck and roll on the next roof. This one had a small garden and a dovecote, which I admired briefly. Really, I should have put an herb garden on my little deck, I thought. It smelled so nice with the basil and mint in the air.

  Dropping out of sight, I made sure the wolves weren’t on my original roof yet, and then performed another tremendous leap, heading farther east.

  This time, I stayed hidden for a long time, peeking around the edge of the brick stairwell where I crouched. The three shifters had made it to the first roof and prowled it for my scent. They found the direction I escaped and judged that distance to the next roof—too far for a wolf.

  They could go down through the building and up again at the next building, slowly tracking me, or they could give up and phone my presence into their betas.

  Come on, I thought at them. Call it in.

  The lead wolf pulled a cell phone from his pocket, turning away from my direction, and I exhaled.

  Creeping to the metal stairs nearest me, I slunk down, back to the ground, and out of sight. The twilight had turned to night during my rooftop crossing and the city lights reflected gray in the sky. I couldn’t wait to be where I could see the stars at night.

  On the street again, I mingled with the crowds heading to bars and restaurants and concentrated on feeling natural and easy. I sucked in deep, steadying breaths, calming my heart rate, as I wiped my sweating palms on my jeans and soothed my agitated pheromones.

  Heading to the street market, still full of evening shoppers, I pushed myself to think human thoughts, human motivations. I needed my scent to change, so I planned my meals for the next few days. I daydreamed about my new job. When I reached the market, I knew my aroma smelled fully human again.

  As I shopped and made lists, I moved through the people around me, feeling relaxed once more. I bought an apple and crunched into it, chasing the scent of wolf from the back of my throat.

  I only had a little bit longer to go. Then I’d be free of the packs completely—both the wolves and the big cats.

  Chapter 2

  The drive west from D.C. slogged until South Dakota. Then the landscape opened and the cities disappeared. As I passed prairies with pronghorn antelope, their white bellies and neck stripes catching my keen eyes, and shining lakes rioting with waterfowl, I felt more relaxed than I’d been in years. It felt like I was driving home.

  When the Rocky Mountains finally came into view, building at the horizon in a dark smudge, then a white-capped range, and finally a towering escarpment, my chest felt so light I had to pull over and hug myself at the wheel until I calmed down enough to keep going.

  At the northern entrance to Yellowstone Park, with bones aching from the cramped car journey, I checked into the main ranger station at Mammoth Hot Springs. After picking up my paperwork, I wandered the wooden paths around the springs for a while. The sulfur scents wafted intensely on the breeze, but the bubbling springs and glowing pools took my breath away. The terraces, crumbling white and glowing bronze, climbed the slope in front of me and elk grazed in the steam, their steps dainty in the spring basins.

  I stuck my face close to the bacterial mats by the path, noting the tiny color variations in the stripes of pumpkin-orange and sunset-yellow. The water fizzed and trickled, filling the spring air with sizzling bacon sounds.

  Eventually, I climbed into my car again, which now stank of fast food and old banana peels, and headed south through the park to my station at Yellowstone Lake.

  The thrum of anticipation made my breathing fast and my hands a little shaky as I drove. My puma awoke from her cage, peering curiously out through the bars. I tried to calm down but it was no use. I was too excited. Her tail twitched and my eyes sparked golden-brown, lasering intensely at the road in front of me. I shook my head, clearing my vision.

  After parking my Subaru in front of the ranger village, I stepped out into the bright morning sun and inhaled deeply. I’d made it. This was what I’d been working my tail off to achieve since college.

  As a backcountry and wilderness management ranger at Yellowstone, I would patrol the deep wilderness of the park, looking for illegal campfires, damaged trails, and visitors in need of assistance. I had at my fingertips over 3,000 square miles of wilderness, plus more to the south in the Tetons. I could roam every full moon and not worry about hunters shooting me. I could study pumas living free in nature, maybe learning something about myself in the process. And no shifter, wolf or otherwise, could tell me to leave; no shifter could kill me for trespassing in their territory. The national parks belonged to all shifters equally. My wild side craved that solitude like a profound ache.

  The pent-up pressure in my chest from years of hiding released in a whoosh and tears pricked at my eyes. I inhaled deeply, scenting the lodgepole pines and the sagebrush.

  Assigned to the ranger village near Yellowstone Lake, I had a small apartment to call my own. Fingering the key from the envelope I’d picked up at Human Resources, I strolled up the walkway, looking around interestedly.

  Several buildings stood in a broad circle, each holding upstairs and downstairs apartments. The parking lot appeared semi-full and I saw a lot of pickup trucks and old Subarus, like my own.

  The exterior of the apartment complex bore peeling brown paint and when I unlocked my ground floor unit, I wasn’t surprised to see old, beige carpet and plain, white walls. It smelled clean though, so I ignored its austerity. I ran my hand down the smooth kitchen counter, my calloused fingertips catching on the linoleum. I saw one bedroom down the short hall, one bathroom, and a small living area off a tiny kitchen.

  I loved it. I wouldn’t be spending that much time there, but it was perfect for me. I didn’t cook much or entertain. I just needed a bed, a shower, and an internet connection.

  After dropping my bags, I continued to unload the car. The whole time a rhythmic refrain bounced in my head, some kind of distorted version of Tom Petty’s Free Falling. I used it to call the puma, relying on her super muscles to unload my boxes in record time as I rocked my head to my internal beat.

  I finished just as footsteps approached from the trails behind the complex. Relaxing my instinctive guardedness, I pasted an easy smile on my face and looked up from my trunk.

  A man walked up the paved path, his khaki green pants dusty and his stone-gray collared shirt askew. He carried his ranger hat in his hands and appeared to be intent on his feet as he walked.

  Clearing my throat, I slammed my car door closed and he looked up, startled. I saw a round face with squinting eyes behind thick glasses. After staring at me for a long beat, he pushed his shoulders back and strode forward.

  I stuck my hand out as he got close. “I’m Sienna,” I said. “I just transferred here from D.C.”

  The man nodded slowly, taking in my appearance, from my old sneakers, up my bare legs to my brief running shorts, my tank top, and then my long brown hair in a ponytail. His gaze never lifted above my chest and I flushed. What’s his problem?

  Hiding my irritation, I asked, “What’s your name? Do you live here too?”

  The stranger finally raised his eyes to mine and flinched. Hmm, maybe I didn’t do a great job hiding my annoyance.

  “My name’s Terry. That’s my place right there,” he tentatively said, pointing to the apartment above mine in the complex.

  “Great!” I lied. “I’m just below you.”

 
Nodding, he waved his hand through the air expansively. “Welcome to our little slice of heaven. Have you been to the park before?”

  I shook my head. “No, this is my first time here. I have a couple of days to unpack and explore and then I’m supposed to report to the backcountry office on Monday.”

  “Well, let me know if you’d like a guide when you explore,” he said, staring at my chest again, his ears pink.

  Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Keeping my cool, I said only, “I’ll see you around!” and carried my last box into my apartment, shutting the door with my hip. I set the box on the floor and peeked through the blinds covering the front window, watching Terry stare at my apartment door, his expression hard to read behind his glasses.

  I reminded myself not to judge my new neighbor and coworker. Maybe he was just socially awkward.

  After stepping into the small kitchen, I started to unpack the boxes I’d just carried in. I had only a few belongings with me, like my coffee pot and my favorite mug, my backpack and my ranger gear, and some off-duty clothes. The moving van was due to arrive that afternoon with my bed and the old, soft couch from my D.C. apartment.

  In the meantime, I felt ready to be a tourist again. My wander at Mammoth had only whetted my appetite. I knew from the map that HR passed along with all my forms that I could walk from the apartment complex to the lake, so I decided to start my exploring there. After being in the car for the past three days, I wasn’t in a hurry to drive anywhere else for a while.

  Heading down the path that Terry had used, I let my head fall back in the warm sunshine. The grass alongside the path rioted with wildflowers and their sweet scent perfumed the air. I could hear distant voices from the lake as my hiking boots scuffed along the gravel path lightly.

  The path curved alongside a freshly mowed field and then rose slightly. When I reached the apex, my breath caught as I stared down onto Yellowstone Lake. Majestically wide and bright blue, it stretched for miles across to snow-capped peaks to the east. I could see fumarole vents along the shore, sending gray steam into the air. Sulfur hung on the breeze again.